Squilookle said:
Except that the very first time we ever see the force used, -ever- is Vader choking that officer at the table on the Death Star. Did you forget that after extending his hand to begin the choke, he never moved another muscle in exertion to maintain the choke? He even walks off and releases the choke mid-stride without reacting or even looking at the victim, pretty much exactly the way Ren released the blaster bolt.
How about in Empire when Vader chokes another Officer to death from a completely different ship? Doesn't gesture, doesn't move, and seems perfectly able to casually talk about the man's failure as he does it.
Or what about on Bespin when he starts using everything in the room against Luke? He moves his sabre for the first object, but after that needs to do *visibly absolutely nothing* to get other things to attack Luke. He can even focus on a freaking lightsaber duel at the same time as all that telekinesis!
Hate to say it but that is the way the force works, and always has right from the very start.
Eh, I'll have to watch them again but in my memory the gestures were still there. Not that you had to keep doing something, like releasing and retightening your grip to choke, but you had to hold the choke stance. Might be wrong, its been a while, but that's how I've always remembered it.
Fox12 said:
It was a planet sized battle station. The damn thing had its own ecosystem. The Empire literally build a planet. This is a rather stupid waste of resources, since you typically want your weapons to become smaller and more streamlined, but I'll let it go. The death star wasn't particularly realistic in the first film either, after all.
I doubt they actually built a planet. More got a fairly abandoned planet and turned it into a death station. Hell, wouldn't even need any external resources for that, and we know how fast things get built in the Star Wars universe. The whole having a giant doom station is kinda stupid and overdone, but once you accept that there is one things flow from there alright.
It does present a massive problem, though. How many millions of people could have been carried on that station? How many decades would have been spent building it? We're talking about an almost dyson sphere sized structure, here, based on the size of the structure in the film.
The original Deathstar was smaller than the moon. This one looked to be around maybe the size of Mars at the most. That's not a Dyson Sphere, that sort of thing is the size of the sun. I also doubt it took too many decades to build considering, if you build it out of an existing planet, that all the resources are there to start with, its half built already, and all you really have to do is build a few surface facilities and a core channeling pipeline, looking at the movie, and you've got yourself a killer planet. Maybe it is an incredibly rushed job and that's why its not covered in metal so much that you can't even see the damn planet. Either way, for the Star Wars universe, its not really that much work.
As for how many millions of people... Well, as many millions as they produced food to feed. Didn't look like any farms on the planet, so I'm gonna go ahead and say probably not that many. Having a lot of troops on a single planet also isn't all that useful. Its like taking millions of dollars and hiding it under your pillow. It does nothing. Earns you nothing. You'd take those troops and send them out to do something useful, rather than just sit on a planet all day. Especially a planet shielded so that nothing can enter it [except by travelling at light speed], and all facilities on it were heavily fortified bunkers. If it gets attacked, you'll theoretically have plenty of warning and be able to bring back your armies, because nothing can penetrate your defences.
It was destroyed by three guys with a bag full of small explosives, and a very small number of fighters. Han was able to just fly onto the structure without dying, and without being detected, and then he was able to just walk into the bunker without being detected. This is ridiculous, given that the two prior death stars had been destroyed in a similar fashion. Hell, Return of the Jedi even made this a plot point. The Empire knew about the rebels the entire time, and lured them into a trap. The rebels had to lead a massive assault just to break through. The point of the movie was that the Empires arrogance led to their downfall.
Han et al infiltrated without any issue, because they landed at light speed. Like. They dropped out of Hyperspace, at the surface of the planet. Not only incredibly dangerous, but also theoretically impossible due to the Mass Shadow created by the planet that disrupts Hyperspace. It is basically very quickly done plot magic. The planet itself is protected by a shield that prevents anything slower than light from getting close. This explains why he was undetected; if a person instantly appeared in a room halfway across your house, would you detect their arrival? No breaking in, they just teleport into that room. Odds are, no, you would not, because there is no way for you to do so.
Infiltrating the base... Uhh, yeah, classic Star Wars plot magic. Its always been like that. Getting to the bunker isn't as big a deal, considering that monitoring every meter of an entire planet is an insane undertaking to begin with, even in the Star Wars world, let alone a planet that theoretically nothing can land on and that you'll have forewarning of anyone going to try.
Saying it was just a 'guy with some explosives and a few fighters' also doesn't really do justice to the amount of weaponry used against that one facility, and how it was used. Its kind of like saying that its not realistic that many cities in WWII were levelled by just a few planes flying overhead. The number of bombs those planes dropped was ridiculous. Likewise, there were a small number of fighters, but the amount of firepower they delivered was pretty damn high - and they didn't scratch it until internal sabotage opened up a wound for them to do so, and even then it wasn't until they flew in through the wound and attacked the unarmoured interior that they were able to actually damage it. It checks out in terms of weak spots. There isn't much more they could have done to make it not a weak spot outside of having the station be indestructible entirely, and naturally that wouldn't work for the movie. No matter how impenetrable it theoretically is, it was always going to be taken down, as the movie needs to go ahead. They did a pretty good job of making it as impenetrable as possible though, even if they did just quickly bypass everything - an issue that IMO is tied to pacing as they literally just went "Ok, this is what we're going to do. Done" and moved on.
In the new film the rebels discovered the weak point in about five seconds. How bad was the design, that they were able to do this? And, for that matter, where did the rebels get the design schematics for the battle station? Presumably, they didn't even know it existed until it was used. Unless they did know it existed, and analyzed it. But if they knew it existed before hand, then why didn't the Republic launch an attack before it was used? In A New Hope the entire point of the movie was that the rebels were trying to find the schematics to the death star, so they could destroy it. When they get them, it took hours for their best scientists to find a weakness. When the rebels do attack, they're only successful because the Empire didn't build enough anti-aircraft guns. In the new film they're able to find a weakness to a much larger station, without schematics, in about five seconds. Given that the first deaths star was destroyed by fighters, and the second one was destroyed by sabotage on Endor, the Empire should have taken both into account in this film. And you mean to tell me this isn't a massive plot hole? Lets be real.
They got the weakness in 5 seconds because Finn told them.
Its in the movie: "A weapon like that would need some sort of thermal oscillator to keep it running" - scientist who probably knows at least a little about containing the entire energy of a sun and needing to vent that heat somehow, pretty straightforward logic IMO.
"Yeah, that's right here" - Finn, who worked on the station.
Its like saying "That plane there would need an engine to keep in the air", and having one of the guys who does maintenance on that plane say "Oh, yeah, the engine is here". Its a logical conclusion, and some inside help telling you where that is.
They didn't need schematics, they had a quick scan taken after the thing was discovered, and a guy who worked on the damn thing. There's not really any plot hole here, or contrivances. There's a bit of "Well that's convenient" in the fact that Finn just so happens to have been assigned to sanitation on that planet at some point, but otherwise...
As for the Empire [Not empire AFAI can tell] defending it... They did learn, the movie just bypassed those lessons, as it would inevitably need to, in order to destroy the station. There were anti-aircraft turrets, and enough fighters to outnumber the rebels 10 to 1. The Rebels were just good enough pilots with a Han Solo equivalent fighter that it didn't matter. Additionally, much like in VI, there wasn't a design weakness on the station. No convenient exhaust port. There was a bunker that could withstand numerous bombing runs and realistically seems to only have been vulnerable from the inside. In addition to that, its shielded such that nothing can attack it, and those shields come from within the facility itself rather than on another celestial body, so it should be impossible to even get to the shields because the shields are shielded by themselves. But, of course, 'faster than lightspeed landing - oop, doesn't matter anymore' was the 3 second reason given why all this didn't matter.
This would be an egregious error on Disney's part, if true, since it would show that they really just don't care enough to pay attention. We know for a fact that this isn't the case, though, since they specifically state that it's Anakins lightsaber, which Luke receives in episode 4. Which Luke lost at Bespin. Which, again, raises the question: why did a random old lady, on a random planet, have Luke's lightsaber? The only people who knew about it were Luke and Vader. Vader died, and Luke clearly didn't care enough to get it. Instead he built a new one, showing us that he had become a full Jedi. Even Han didn't know about the lightsaber, as the new film specifically tells us. So where did this random grandma find it? The film doesn't even try to explain it. Abrams wanted it in there, so it got shoehorned in without thought or explanation.
Hmm. I wasn't sure if I remembered a line about it being Vader's, but I didn't think there was one. Either way, Disney kind of mess with continuity a bit. It was just a bit too convenient, and no matter the explanation is just... weak in order to try and push a plot point.
Yes, I would believe it. In this hypothetical world, Merlin would still be alive. People who knew him would still be alive. We would have video footage, and historical evidence to prove that he existed. In Star Wars the Jedi had existed for thousands of years, to the point that they were active in the government as diplomats. They had massive temples all over the place. Their existence is treated as common knowledge, and an accepted part of the universe. Even if you take Luke out of the picture entirely, we know from the prequels that the Jedi were a large, and important, organization. And we know that the prequels are still canon, because the new film references them on several occasions. And, even if that weren't enough, the existence of Kylo Ren and the Order, which are also common knowledge, would prove that the force exists. It's still an active part of the universe. Even if she's from Podunk planet, it makes no sense for her to think that the Jedi, or Luke, are a myth. He's an established historical figure at this point, who had a massive impact on the entire universe. If she's heard of him, then there's no reason to think he's a "myth." Space magic seems mythical to us, because it doesn't exist in out universe. In Star Wars it's mundane, and normal. It's so mundane that they even understand it scientifically, since they can tie it to microscopic organisms called midichlorians. This plot development makes no sense whatsoever.
Merlin would be alive... But missing for years. Nobody has seen him, nobody even knows if he is alive any more. If you were to say "Show me Merlin", the answer would be "We don't know where he is" - not very convincing.
You also seem to misunderstand the whole "Dark Ages" idea. The Greeks and Romans existed for hundreds or thousands of years, but most of their technology was rapidly lost following their collapse, and we entered the medieval Dark Ages where all that remained were ruins. Even today, a thousand years later, we STILL don't know what Greek Fire was or how to make it. Things do get lost, permanently, when massive amounts of power shift in the world. There are languages and religions - similar to what the Jedi are - who we no longer have any knowledge of these days, except from archeology in more recent years following the Renaissance, yet were huge in their time and area of the world.
As much as she may not have any reason to believe Luke is a myth, nobody has seen Jedi in the galaxy, by and large, for probably close to 100 years at this point. Darth Vader and the Emperor were 2 giant figureheads known by reputation and myth more than personal experience. The Jedi fell years before IV, and even then weren't universally well known - only in the core worlds. Since then its been at least 30 years, and one Jedi started training a small set of Jedi somewhere in the galaxy, and then disappeared with all his apprentices dead. The majority of the galaxy have seen nothing of this magic, nothing of this Greek Fire, for many decades.
Even in their prime, the Jedi were primarily known in the core worlds. Outside the core worlds, in the outer rim, they were either unknown, or known by reputation with little knowledge of their actual powers, depending on where you went. Its like saying the Roman Legions would have been famous and really well known in China. They'd never had any contact with them. Maybe some travellers came and talked about them, but having never seen them before, what were they to know whether its real or not?
And this is in their prime. Since there fall, two generations have been raised - Luke ect, and then their children. Its bordering on the start of a third generation since the fall of the Jedi. These aren't even first hand stories from people that have seen them. In the outer worlds, these are the stories your mother used to tell you when you were young, about what some person she met at a spaceport told her.
You also overestimate the general populace's knowledge of the Force. Most don't know it exists. Especially since the fall of the Jedi. They can't sense it. They can't see it. They can't use it or analyse it, with all technology related to it being stolen by the empire, and all records being destroyed.
It is very much like expecting you to know the magic powers an ancient Mayan priest would have had, in this time when we suspect no powers exist, but back then they had actually had the ability to move things with their mind. Scepticism evokes alternative explanations for these stories, and the truth is obscured over generations.
Its not a clear cut "They all should have known". Jedi weren't that famous throughout the whole galaxy, mostly only the Core worlds that they actually interacted with. All records of them would have been removed by the Emperor. Their powers were never really well understood or known outside of their order and the Sith. They are nowhere to be seen or found.
At this point in time, Jedi are just stories. They haven't existed on the galactic stage for generations, and even when they did they weren't universally known or understood, keeping much of their knowledge of the force to themselves, and remaining primarily within the worlds governed by the Republic. Meeting one would be like meeting a real life magician, trained by a person who was trained by Merlin. It just seems like its impossible, it goes against reason, and nobody has seen magicians in years, outside of a few people who 'claim' to be magicians but are surely just performing 'tricks' with a logical explanation. Not knowing about a relatively obscure figure ['Led' the Rebellion {Actually Leia did}. Rebellion was a few worlds. Most of the empire would have remained uninformed about the full details of the Rebellion, and I doubt the Rebellion post-win would have gone around spreading propoganda of "Look, Jedi, cool and awesome", more "You're free, empire is defeated, look at our heroes", with a medal ceremony rather than a holovid of Luke showing off the force], and not knowing that bedtime stories are actually real, is fully reasonable given that's what things had become.
Edit: Also, why did they leave Rey with a single storm trooper guard? At this point in the story Kylo Ren knows that she has the force, so why would he leave her with one guy? Especially since he thinks she's vital to his plan? Force persuasion only works on the weak minded, so why not leave her with, like, and Ivy League educated storm trooper who was valedictorian of his class? They have at least hundreds of thousands of people on a massive, complex battle station. They could find someone, even if it wasn't a storm trooper, who wasn't weak minded. Even wado, from Phantom Menace, could withstand force persuasion from a trained master. Her escape was contrived as well.
Probably, like us, he was incredulous that she picked up the force so fast. Its just not something that happens. Going from "Has just discovered she is force sensitive" to "Able to use Force Persuade like a trained master" in maybe an hour is a bit of a leap of logic.
Also, Watto's, like the Hutts. Its not that the Hutts, or Watto, are all Ivy league scholars and very strong minded, they're just immune to force persuasion. There are some weird exceptions in how the force applies itself, very much driven by plot convenience.
